Letter to the editor

Just received, worth passing on during this week’s interlude:

I think things are becoming very interesting in this rigged CE selection. I don’t think Beijing has as much control over the Election Committee [as] it likes to have … the fact that Carrie Lam received only 579 nominations proves it. This falls short of the 601 nominations she needs to win.

To make matters worse for Carrie there are around 272 undecided pro establishment voters, there are rumours that there are many disgruntled pro establishment voters that didn’t appreciate publicly nominating Carrie under duress and intend to vote differently during the secret ballot election, the pan democrats control 327 votes, and the cherry on top is John Tsang has 20 pro establishment nominations to top it all off…

Carrie Lam is also doing herself no favours with her joke of a campaign that has more in common with Henry Tang’s failed campaign than it does with CY’s campaign. Her popularity is waning, she’s already being mobbed by protesters, and her gaffes are just plain embarrassing.

I think the blatant very visible manipulation of the CE selection is starting to backfire horribly for the liaison office, and John Tsang may end up getting elected despite the liaison office’s best efforts to thwart that.

This leaves Beijing the nuclear option of refusing appointment. But would they really do that? I doubt it, especially since President Xi did shake Tsang’s hand and Tsang has been a principal official of the HKSAR government for years. They already appointed Donald Tsang despite the fact that Donald wasn’t Beijing’s first choice and a he’s an Anglophile  …  It’ll cause even more resentment in the pro establishment camp than there already is, not to mention massive angry public protests, and push HK even further away from Beijing than it already is.

The alternative theory is that Beijing are executing a cunning Machiavellian strategy and actually want John Tsang to win by showering Carrie Lam with their toxic support, but I do not believe those extremely thick skulls up north are capable of planning anything beyond clumsy ham-fisted psychopathic brute force, threats, and extortion.

Brief thoughts:

Beijing doesn’t have as much control as it would like over anything.

Yes, the ‘Machiavellian’ theory is too outlandish for Beijing. Carrie is undoubtedly the official choice (barring a deus ex machina). Beijing has sufficient zombie/loyalist-reserves on the Election Committee to make sure she ‘wins’, though possibly with an embarrassingly low margin and with dire public opinion ratings. The ‘appointment’ power is an emergency button – a superfluous security blanket for the paranoid thumb-sucking CCP.

Beijing has put itself in this position – whatever outcome it contrives, it alienates Hong Kong through the process and by delivering an administration with no mandate or credibility. (And, as the manifesto suggests, Carrie looks set to be the least-confident CE so far. John would be most lightweight.)

The point about her campaign looking like Henry’s gets Spot-On Observation of the Week Award. That handing-of-job-on-plate-to-dupe-massively-out-of-their-depth smell is unmistakable.

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10 Responses to Letter to the editor

  1. Stephen says:

    I neither believe that that the CCP are capable of such a cunning Machiavellian strategy. But it begs the question what have they got on John and why ditch the ever loyal, dyed in the wool, card carrying CY for Carrie ? No idea on the first part but as a possible reason for the second part is they’ve looked at the UGL case and see if definite possibility of a conviction. What a lovely thought …

  2. dimuendo says:

    Stephen

    So why “elect” him yesterday to the NPCC? I think that signals protection for CY.

    Do not understand why John Tsang is so popular.

    Incompetent, uninspired financial secretary.

    His “great idea”inspired” by a film is food trucks, which of course in HK rapidly become static!

    Refusing to take questions from the Legco reps who had been sworn in, but then sued by the commissar and his sidekick. Either JTsang is compliant and weak or he is an authoritarian opportunist.

  3. pd says:

    These ingenious theories are great fun to read, but… no-one ever won by betting against Peking’s kiasu.

    In any case, it would be no big deal. Apart from cheaper coffee imports, JT would be no better than Carrie or CY, and worse than Donald. The only point in supporting him is to spite the CP, with the hope of a constitutional crisis, for those who think that worse is better, that we might as well try to pull the house down on ourselves.

    Stephen, possibly, but a sitting CE can’t be charged, so a second term would have saved CY’s bacon for another five years.

  4. Red Dragon says:

    Oh dear me. It really does look like curtains for Hongkers, doesn’t it?

    Perhaps l might be allowed to cheer everyone up with a spot of Yeats.

    Not quite up to knownot’s standards, but there one is.

    The Second Coming
    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
    The darkness drops again; but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

  5. pd says:

    Ip is out !

  6. Nutter says:

    Give me carrie over JT any day. The latter might be a rather urbane and jolly chap but he’s a buffoon. Not one budget forecast right in 7 years. Just because he has an East Coast twang doesn’t mean he’d be any good as a CE.

    Whoever’s stooge Carrie is, at least she’s competent. Though whether the most talented candidate in the world could navigate the tangled shambles of our existing system is debatable.

  7. Chinese Netizen says:

    So then the “madate” angle can come into play and be a constant thorn in the side of Curry should she win with a dismally low number.

    She’ll “win”, that much we know, BUT with a pathetic, low showing, she’ll have no mandate and that needs to be brought up to her face E V E R Y single time she speaks or makes an appearance!

  8. Colonial Dinosaur says:

    At times like this I think that Confucian logic will prevail…the vote will go to the oldest candidate…Justice WOO!

  9. Hermes6 says:

    Many people claim that Lam is competent. Whether she achieved much during her previous role in housing and development is debatable. But do we really want someone who is competent when they are planning to force through Article 23, form a Religious Affairs Unit, etc.?

  10. Penus Wong says:

    Carrie Lam, aka ‘689 2.0’ will become the next CEO without a popular mandate. Great start. Being the colorless, self-entitled bureaucrat that she is, she will never win the hearts of the people of Hong Kong. It’s going to be a very tough 5 years, little woman.

    Ip Lau Suk-yee is out of the race, but she is still in Legco. Knowing her, she will not let any opportunity pass to make a bloody nuisance of herself.

    And that Xi Jinping handshake ? Maybe Xi dada isn’t really as powerful as he wants us to believe.

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